NEWS: NASA manager who oversaw shuttle fuel tank is removed

NASA manager who oversaw shuttle fuel tank is removed

Wednesday August 27, 2003

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) The NASA manager who oversaw space shuttle
Columbia's faulty external tank has been removed in the continuing
fallout from the shuttle disaster.

Jerry Smelser, external-tank project manager at NASA's Marshall Space
Flight Center, has been reassigned and will retire at the end of the
year, said Dave King, Marshall director.

Investigators concluded that Smelser used erroneous information to
argue in favor of a previous shuttle launch. The bad information
appeared to be an ``honest mistake'' and not a deliberate attempt to
cover up years of problems with Marshall-managed tanks, King said
Wednesday.

Smelser, now serving as an adviser to the shuttle programs office at
Marshall, did not immediately return a call for comment.

King said Marshall engineers were wrong to push for a shuttle launch
last year even though they knew foam had come off a particularly
troublesome area of the external tank.

The Columbia accident investigation board concluded foam came off the
same spot during Columbia's launch in January, hitting the shuttle's
left wing and causing damage that led to its breakup over Texas on
Feb. 1.


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